League of Fog
In the three days that had passed, Isabella noticed a strange trend among the crew. Though they hadn’t been travelling long, the men were anxious. Unpredictable. She couldn’t tell if it was the call of gold or having seen these terrifying monsters that made them want to tear at each others throats.
The other day, one of the men accused another of stealing their slice of bread. Immediately, a fist fight broke out, with a dozen fists thrown and a dozen more black eyes. Only the Captain could end the confrontation, his lit beard scaring even the toughest pirates. Even with the fight over, simmering resentment carried through half of the men.
Isabella had no time to worry about that. She’d noticed Spec had taken an interest in following her along the ship. His research taking place next to the wheel while she piloted the Harrington, his discussions with crew members within earshot of her, sitting opposite her during meal times. Once, she’d come back to her room to find her drawers opened and searched. Her hidden cache was safe, though it provided little relief.
A small comfort was no-one else being aware of these intrusions. Both she and Spec knew that they couldn’t turn each other in. If she fought back at him, it would bring unnecessary attention to herself. If he brought it up, it would become a threat to the first officer, something the Captain wouldn’t accept.
That was the feel of the ship as they entered into the next challenge. Spec had brought Matchstick, herself, and a couple more officers into the captains quarters, detailing a part of the map surrounding Isla Sin Cabeza.
“Fog,” he started.
“Fog?” the captain laughed. “After the call of those sea monsters, you’re worried about a little fog?”
“This is no ordinary fog,” Spec continued. “According to my research, this is the ‘League of Fog’. As the name would imply, it is a massive stretch of deep, impenetrable smoke surrounding the island. Few ships have crossed it’s mist. Fewer still have returned to tell the tale.”
“It’s just fog though,” Matchstick said. “Harmless fog.”
“Even under normal circumstances,” Isabella chimed in, “Good ships have been lost to mist.”
She turned to Spec, doing everything she could to act as if the past few days of staring hadn’t happened.
“What makes this one so different?”
“It is unusually thick,” he began, adjusting his spectacles to look away. “Some say on longer ships you can’t see one end from the other. There is talk that this is deliberate. That there is… something below hiding itself.”
The men, wrapped up in his tale, leaned closer. Even Isabella, as annoyed at him as she could be, found herself pulled in by these words.
“What kind of something?” an officer asked.
“Something dangerous.”
Matchstick grinned, gleeful at the idea of fighting a beast once more. Ever since the sirens, he’d convinced himself he was invincible. He’d challenge men to stab him, only to dodge their blows with a quick parry. He’d get them to shoot, only for them to miss. Having a massive creature for him to fight could have only doubled his appetite.
Spec explained how they would get through the fog. Careful orders were to be given out, making sure everyone knew exactly who was where, what were they doing, and how far they were through. The lamps would be lit to give shape in the fog. Men would be posted at all corners of the ship, looking out for landmarks and other such entities.
The captain added his own order: Isabella would by piloting the ship and Spec would be navigating. Only they, Matchstick claimed, could figure out the path through. This came as a surprise to both of them. It was one thing to keep an eye on each other from a distance. Being right next to them was another.
Yet they knew to keep their mouths shut. No good to anger the boss when he gave an order.
With all their places set, they got to work preparing to enter the shrouded waters.
Isabella breathed slowly as Spec checked his sextant. He’d wanted to make sure they were on the right track before heading into the fog. If they deviated by even one coordinate, they could end up miles from their destination. He found his mark, smiled, and set it down.
“Looks like we’re heading the right way,” he remarked. “As long as we remain level, we’ll make it through.”
Isabella nodded, breaching the mist in front of them.
The effect was instant. The bowsprit disappeared into the fog, with the rest of them shrouding themselves in grey cloud. Clothes stuck to their skin as water seeped its way through. The glowing lanterns hinted at the shape of the ship, hardly reaching the floorboards. Shudders from crew, while not seen, could be felt through their very bones.
Only a league to go, Isabella thought glumly.
Now that they were in the privacy of outside, only that which was next to her could be seen. Unfortunately, this left the option to one man.
“So Gary…” Spec began, his face lit only by the lantern beside them, voice low and quiet. “Tell me more about this… lass of yours. The captain appears to think you have your eye on her. That this is the reason you came along in the first place.”
Isabella shot him a glance, though refused to answer.
“I see, so perhaps it is something different.” He paused. “I wouldn’t worry too much. She’s probably causing too much trouble on board the redcoats ship, anyway. They say that having a woman on board is bad luck. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“I have heard such things,” Isabella said, lowering her voice to a growl. “What of it?”
“I suppose I may be imagining it,” he continued. “But this past week has been rather full of trouble, hasn’t it? Our cove raided, the sirens nearly killing us. We’ve also had some bad luck, despite no women present on our logs.”
He walked around her slowly, boots clicking carefully to her right. Isabella did her best to block him out, gripping the wheel tightly.
“And then there’s the matter of your headband falling off your head. I must say, that was a shock. Because you hardly seemed effected. It was quick, so at first I thought I’d imagined it. But then I saw the look on your face. The look of a found man. Or should I say: found woman?”
He grinned.
“Isn’t that right, Isabella Yates?”
She pulled a dagger to his throat in one action. They froze, eyes daring the other to move. She scowled, he grinned. Both knew what would happen if she killed him. He’d technically done no wrong. None that they would have seen. But he couldn’t call out. It would just give her an excuse.
They stayed like that for minutes, no-one interrupting them. No-one could see, no-one could hear. Walls of fog blocked out anyone’s gaze.
“How?” was all Isabella started with.
“It was rather difficult,” he began. “You hid your tracks well. Since you dropped your mask, I reviewed the ships logs from when you were rescued. There was no Gary on board. But there was a Wendy Peters, the name of your friend. And she was locked up with a woman called Isabella Yates. Both women sentenced to the gallows for murdering their husbands, among other crimes.”
“What does that prove?”
“It proves that you’re not who you say you are,” Spec finished, drawing back. “And with being a woman, I can imagine the Captain won’t be too pleased.”
“You say anything to the captain,” Isabella growled. “And I’ll shove those spectacles into your eyes.”
Officer Peter ‘Spec’ McBonne was not a pirate. Not really. He was a scholar. His life had been spent learning and studying in universities, colleges, places he could count on getting a meal. The turn to piracy under Matchstick had been born from cowardice at what he would do to him if he denied the offer.
In short, he did poorly with threats.
“I…” he stammered. “I… suppose I can keep it below deck.”
“You’d better,” she continued. “Because if you utter half a word about this, I swear I’ll–”
A shot rang out beside them. A man wailed, swearing up and down something shot from the water. Clattering footsteps marched to the noise, peering over the edge in hopes of seeing this strange monster.
From the helm, Isabella and Spec listened out to the commotion. The captain soon made his way down to interrogate the crew member.
“What did you see, boy?” he asked, excited.
“I don’t know, captain,” the man stammered. “Just a movement. Could have been my imagination but… I swear there was something down there. I just swear it!”
“Mate’s lying!” another called out. “Fogs just getting to him. Though I can’t say I’m shocked. He gets scared of closing his eyes to sleep!”
A few laughs rang out at his misfortune, Matchstick along with them. The pirate looked around, flustered.
“I’m serious! I swear I saw something!”
“Lad,” Matchstick laughed, patting his shoulder. “This fog is a tough beast. But it’s probably just- Jesus Christ!”
A tentacle wrapped around the man and yanked him back into the sea. His screams echoed out on the empty waters, frightening away all pretence of a deserted fog. The man hurried to the side, pulling guns and cutlasses to fight the beast below.
“Fire at will!”
Men drew their pistols and shot the waters. Gunfire reverberated the air in harsh bangs. A couple men below deck even began firing cannons at the water in the hopes of catching the tentacled creature.
Spec gripped down on the helms railing, knuckles and face pale white. His eyes darted to the waters edge then to his hands, mentally calculating the different ways they could possibly get out of this. Sweat perspired on his face, masking his already fogged glasses. He rubbed them away, mumbling thoughts.
“I…” he started. “It’s so… unpredictable.”
“Unpredictable?” Matchstick questioned. “Then make it predictable! How do we get out of here?”
“I don’t know!” he screamed, admitting his weakness. “There is no precedent for this. I don’t have the training. I just… I know nothing about these creatures.”
He glanced up to Isabella, eyes pleading for help. She grinned as all of that book smarts, all of that faux intelligence, collapsed around him like a house of cards. He may have been smarter with his education, but at the end of the day lacked her wisdom.
She turned to the crew.
“All hands!” she called, raising a fist. “Fulls sails! Get us the wind! We need to get out of here fast!”
Men scrambled to their stations, releasing ropes and pulleys. Sails unfurled to their full lengths, blocking the view forward. Matchstick appeared at her side, echoing her orders to any stragglers or lazy sea dogs.
Yet her next command halted their actions.
“Stem the lamps! No lights on board!”
The pirates turned to her, confused. Stem the lights? Loose track of where they are on the ship? Wouldn’t that be suicide?
Even Matchstick, for as trusting as he was of ‘Gary’, wondered what she could possibly mean.
“We need to be invisible,” she explained to him. “No ship or creature should see us. We can make it through by compass alone. It’ll be hard, but it’ll work. Now extinguish these lights!”
The men paused. A few went to stop the lights, but others halted them, waiting for their captain to confirm. He stared blankly at her, attempting to understand the thought process. For as smart as she may be with the occasional tactic, this was unprecedented.
“Lad, what are you talking about?” Matchstick asked.
“We need to do it,” she reiterated, frustration boiling over. “Trust me.”
“You can’t trust them, captain,” Spec grinned.
Isabella froze. No. No, this couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not when they were so close to getting out of this mess. He couldn’t possibly be so stupid as to let his vanity seal their fate.
She could believe that lie if it were anyone else.
“They’re not called Gary,” he continued. “They’re not even a he. Her name is Isabella Yates!”
In one swift motion, Spec cut off her outer shirt, revealing the brace compressing her chest. A few men gasped in surprise, a few others stared in shock. She awkwardly tried to cover herself, but it was all over. Each staring face, in one way or another, conveyed betrayal.
The worst face was the captains. All that time, all those fond memories they had built up together; they all changed in an instant. They couldn’t trust each other now. It wasn’t anger, it wasn’t rage. It was disappointment.
“Captain…” she started. “Please, we need to extinguish the flames. Do what you want with me once we get out of here. Walking the plank, marooning. But we can still get out.”
She reached out a hand.
“Steve,” she begged. “Please.”
“Only my friends can call me Steve,” Matchstick muttered. “Only people I trust. Those who have not betrayed it. Men!”
Half stayed still. The others rushed to his aid, waiting for some clarity on what they must do. If they couldn’t trust the first mate, then they would have to trust their captain.
Rage filled his eyes. Rage she had not seen since he murdered the two men who stole the map copy. Rage she never wanted to see herself on the other side of.
“Throw this wench into the brig!”
To be continued…
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Cheesman Chronicles 
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